The present invention relates to an intelligent network for providing a supplement service to a communication network including a telephone network, and more particularly to a communication method suitable for realizing a service to provide information so that home users can receive various information and an apparatus therefor.
Typical examples of prior art information providing services through a public communication network are time announcement (telephone number 117) and weather forecast (telephone number 177) through the public telephone network. In those services, dedicated circuits (called talky trunks) are provided in a switching system of the telephone network, and when a subscriber who wants the service dials a special number (for example, 117 or 177 mentioned above), the switching system operates to connect it to the dedicated circuit so that audio information such as the weather forecast sent from the dedicated circuit is directly passed to the telephone set. In order to accomplish the service, it is necessary for all of the switching systems to be provided with the dedicated circuits. When it is desired to change the content of the service, for example, when the information of the weather forecast is to be changed, the recorded content of each switching system must be changed. Accordingly, in this system, the more the number of services to be provided increases, the more difficult are the addition of new services and the change of the contents of the services.
In order to solve the above problems and permit flexible providing of various services, it has become common to construct an intelligent network. In this system, a transmission layer for transmitting audio information and an intelligent layer for transmitting control information required to realize the service are provided, and various facilities required to realize the service (for example, a database) is installed in the intelligent layer. Detail of the intelligent network is described, for example, in an article "Intelligent Network and Network Operation" (Chapter 1.3.2, pages 19-21, by Minoru Akiyama et al, Corona Publishing Co.).
An example of the services which use the intelligent network is an information providing service charged to a service provider or a so-called #800 service. In this service, the information provider contracts with a network provider to get a special number (888-xxxxxx) from the network provider. When a general telephone subscriber dials to that special number, the network provider collects a charge from the information provider rather than the subscriber who dialed (caller). In order to realize the service, the network provider installs in the intelligent layer a database for allocating a connection destination based on the special number, a database for recording the charges, a mechanism for controlling the transmission network to connect the caller to the information provider (called a connection control point) and a database for storing control information to operate the mechanism. The addition and the change of the services are readily attained by changing the contents of those databases.
An example of the intelligent network services which use the databases is disclosed in R. P. Weber U.S. Pat. No. 4,191,860 "Database Communication Call Processing Method". In the illustrated drawing of the prior art, DATABASE and STP are connected through CCIS which is a common channel signaling network to form an intelligent network.
Examples of the information services charged to the service provider would be news, more detailed weather forecast, guide to movies, recruiting information, road information and event information.
In the above prior art, when a general telephone subscriber wants to receive an information providing service, he/she dials to the information provider to get the information. For example, when he/she wants to get news of the day, he/she dials to the information provider who provides the news providing service, and when he/she then wants to get weather forecast, he/she dials to the information provider of the weather forecast. It may be convenient that desired information is available at a desired time but it takes time and handling accordingly. On the other hand, there are information providing media such as television. In this system, since the information flows in one way, it is difficult to get desired information at a desired time although it does not take much time and handling.
In general, it frequently occurs that some information is daily needed at some time in a usual life. That information and that time vary from person to person.